“Rah lo?” The ceratogi’s voice echoed off the walls of the pitch black room. Tammrit could only see because of the tiny amount of light his body emitted. Such was enough for his kind to see the shapes of rooms around them and each other. But it wasn’t enough for any other species to see anything. Again he had no idea what the rat-man was talking about.
“You need a light source.” He mumbled, glancing around the room. The surface races always brought light with them into the deep. The rj Undercities had public lighting that reacted to the presence of those who could not see on their own. At first his eyes fell on the collection of sticks and leaves that the ceratogi had brought with him. Perhaps they were for exactly this situation; create light in darkness. Too bad he didn’t know how to start a fire.
As he thought about it, he shook his head. If it gathered those things for starting a fire, it would be making a fire right now wouldn’t it. But it was just sitting there in the darkness, hands around it’s knees and feet resting lighting on the pile of junk. “Stay here. I’m going to find something to help.” The rjkari patted his companion’s head twice, the rodent flinching at the contact, before heading over to the large stone door. The door had no handles, at least none he was use to. Only a small indent in the rock nearest the frame. It was large enough for him to fit his hands into, so the rjkari did his best to seize the stone and begin to pull.
The door resisted at first; stone grabbing at stone as he pulled. Suddenly there was a large sound from the other edge of the door. A massive cracking sound as something gave way. The door’s weight shifted, dropping more fully onto the floor before the large slab of rock threatened to fall on the rjkari. Only barely able to slip out from the rock’s path, Tammrit watched as the door fell flat on the floor with a resounding thud that echoed easily throughout the room and the tunnel beyond the doorframe. There was another sound, a small frightened screech from elsewhere in the room. Looking toward the source of the second sound, he could see the ceratogi pressed as far into the corner of the room as it could; it’s head flicking slightly from side to side in his direction.
A part of him just wanted to leave the poor thing alone in the dark. There was no telling what it had done to other rjkari. He had already killed many of its kin, so why not this one? Deciding it was just pity, he strode over to the small huddling ceratogi. “It’s okay. It was just the door.” He was kneeling in front of it like it was some frightened animal. “You’re fine. Just calm down.” It did seem to relax slightly. Did it understand him and was just refusing to talk? No, It was his voice. “Well at least you seem to know what my tone means.” He patted the ceratogi’s shoulder and pushed its pile of junk to touch it’s feet. “I’m going to try and find you some kind of light. Just wait here, okay?”
As he returned to the room’s only door, the rjkari found himself wondering what the ceratogi must be thinking. What were the bits of junk for? Was it trying to make a nest? He froze as his head passed through the doorway, something was moving in the distance. He could hear it.
Was the thing in these tunnels or was it simply moving loudly on the surface. The echo was strange, it could be from anywhere. Eventually he decided it was best to simply assume the sound was in the tunnels and simply keep watch for movement. Slowly he drew the gaspeite blade from the pocket it rested in, and whispered against it while looking around nervously. “I beg for passage. I seek light for another.” The stone seemed warmer in his hands as he began to creep through the darkness of the winding tunnels. Undercities were carved with great open spaces beyond the range of their natural glow to create a less contained sensation. Yet this place did not abide that kind of architecture. The walls seemed to have almost been melted into place leaving a smooth surface that seemed to periodically raise like a small wave where each pair of smoothing effects overlapped.
Some doors had already fallen away, leaving access to strange rooms which seemed to bear no purpose any more as all traces of furniture had long since left. He couldn’t even find any furnaces, not that he’d tried opening a door yet.
The rjkari sighed as he moved to the nearest closed door. At this point he might as well try. As his hands hooked into the hole, a sound echoed through the halls again. It was a strange, scurrying sound, like some large insect skittering toward him. Or was it moving away? He moved the gaspeite blade to being held in his mouth as both hands gripped the door and pulled. The stone door screeched as it was dragged across the hallway floor. He stopped pulling as it opened enough to let him in. This one didn’t break its hinges and collapse, so he was thankful.
Tammrit squeezed through the gap, making certain not to touch the door as he did in case it would fall and make even more noise than simply opening it. The room beyond was smaller than most others he’d seen. It was filled with ancient bookcases that looked ready to collapse under their own weight, let alone the weight rested upon them. Each shelf held dozens of cylinders about the size of his forearm, though he could not tell what they held in his natural lighting. The gaspeite blade, currently held in his mouth, seemed to grow almost icy cold as he looked at these strange canisters.
Gently he took one down and inspected it. He could tell the strange steel alloy on both ends by touch, but the middle section was strange. It was smooth and had a small level of give when he pressed into it but seemed otherwise firm and very strong. A wave of sadness washed through him, prompting the rjkari to return the canister gently to its shelf. He took the blade out of his mouth and pressed it flat against his forehead. “What is it, friend?” He whispered. The images to flood his mind thereafter almost buckled his knees, but he kept himself standing as he looked at the room full of canisters again. “Did they know?” He asked almost shakily to the abandoned room. Of course they knew, why do it if they didn’t. “Leaving them would be an insult wouldn’t it. Like their deaths meant nothing?” True, but how long had they sat in this room. How long had their deaths already been meaningless?
“I’m sorry friends.” He whispered, looking about the canisters. “But I need your help even now.” Holding the gaspeite blade in one hand, he perused the shelves, looking for something. Each canister’s metal ends bore strange symbols. They were not a language but a form of diagram common to Uolune, the practice of gemstone magic. Finally he found one that would be of help; Zincite. Tenderly he removed the canister from the shelf and left the room. “I wish I could help you all.”
Tammrit sneaked through the maze of corridors, the gaspeite blade in one hand and the strange canister in the other. Distant sounds echoed throughout the passages past him. Did he really want to stay down here? Probably not. He pushed the thought of things in the passages out of his mind as he stepped back into the room with the ceratogi. The stone door did not move across the floor as he stepped upon it, like the doors of so many rooms in this complex. “It’s just me.” he whispered as the ceratogi seemed to freeze in place at the sound of his footsteps.
Quietly, the rjkari returned the gaspeite blade to its pocket and sat cross legged with the canister laying on his legs. He was not a good idea to do this in a dangerous place, but there was little choice. “Are there any I may speak with?” He thought, settling himself down to a relaxed state, a pain beginning to spread through him from the neck and down through his chest. “I wish I could help. I promise to look for anything that can be done while I’m here.” It felt like he was being rushed with a strange crowded loneliness of centuries, but the rjkari kept his eyes closed out of respect for the dead and those who live in their ashes. “If any believe me, I beg your help. My friend fears the darkness for good reason; creatures dwell in these depths that he cannot see coming.” If he wanted help, he should be the one to ask. “But he is as a child to us. He does not understand how to speak to you, and I cannot teach him how.” He would have to promise to find a way to end their suffering.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. The ceratogi was sitting silently as well, kneeling in the dark. “It’s okay” Tammrit took one of the ceratogi’s hands by the wrist, placing the canister in the hand before letting go of both. The rodent person lifted the small canister to sniff it before examining it’s shape with its shortfingered hands. He would have preferred to find some shattuckite, but would never let the zincite know. The room grew slightly brighter though nothing seemed to be emitting the light. It was as if every surface was simply lit in and of itself. The brightness was not what he would consider normal lighting for surface dwellers, but the ceratogi had begun to look around. So clearly it was bright enough.
Immediately the ceratogi moved to ‘play’ in the ash and dirt of the small pit beneath their initial entrance. It drew lines and symbols before wiping it all away to create a neat blank slate. The creature then scurried over and collected it’s leaves and sticks and returned them to near the dirt. Tammrit watched as the ceratogi began making a list in the ash. He could not read the strange symbols, but was sure of a list when he saw one. Once the list was built, the ceratogi began slowly measuring the sticks and leaves with his fingers before scribbling apparently random symbols next to various entries of the list.
It was almost three hours before the ceratogi had finished it’s studying. After measuring the dimensions it had begun counting various things like the veins of the leaves or the knots of the sticks or thickness of bark on the sticks. “Find what you wanted?” He asked when the ceratogi finally sat back and looked at all it’s scribblings in the dirt. As if in answer, the rat like creature began snapping the sticks and ripping up the leaves almost furiously while glancing up at the ceiling.
Knowing there was a good chance the ceratogi was going to regret doing this some time soon Tammrit rushed over and grabbed the smaller creature’s arms by the wrists. “Stop, Calm down.” The ceratogi stared at him silently before closing its eyes and hanging its head. After waiting a few more seconds just in case, the rjkari released the other person’s wrists. “Feel better?” The ceratogi didn’t respond, simply moving around Tammrit to begin wiping away its writing in the ash. It was a curious little thing, always doing something, always looking at something. At this point it had begun pacing around the room, heel against toe for each step as it worked its way around the walls.
When it finished pacing, the rodent-man returned to its collection of debris and picked out a length of stick and a remain of a leaf, measuring each against his finger before nodding and moving back to the patch of dirt and ash. Tammrit simply watched, having no idea what the little creature was doing. The ceratogi used the leaf as a measure to guide the stick as it drew a tiny box in the dirt. The box was missing a small segment of one wall, and a dot was placed seemingly at random near the other side. “You” The ceratogi said, finally peaking the rjkari’s curiosity. It was waving excitedly for him to approach. Intrigued, Tammrit dropped to his knees beside the firepit, watching the ceratogi. The small creature was gesturing all around the room before making a small square with its hands and holding it over the box it had drawn.
In hopes of some means of communication, Tammrit picked up a longer segment of leaf and held it over the square so the tip touched the random dot. He then pointed up at the hole in the ceiling through which they arrived. Rather than nod or give any normal body language of yes, the ceratogi repeated the action but instead using a leaf to point to the break in the wall before itself pointing at the door.
“Okay, so that’s a yes.” The rjkari never thought of himself as particularly smart, but it was embarrassing how long it took him to make the next connection. “It’s a map. You want to make a map of this place.” But it wanted the map to some level of accuracy and scale. His mind seemed to be cast back against his will, to the sounds of movement in the tunnels. He needed some way to explain that it was dangerous out there. As quickly as he could, he drew the gaspeite blade and suddenly held it to the ceratogi’s neck. The creature flinched, jumping backward before Tammrit had a chance to hold the blade then against his own neck. It certainly looked confused at this turn of events. Though significantly less confused when he then gently lay the weapon just outside the map of the room.
The ceratogi crept back to the map, looking at the blade and then back to Tammrit. It held it’s hand over the knife and looked back up at the rjkari. Unsure how to give permission, Tammrit leaned backward slightly, at which the ceratogi gently picked up the knife and moved it to laying in the room. “Exactly how much of what I say do you actually understand?” He asked, eyes narrowing. The ceratogi simply sat there waiting patiently. “How am I suppose to confirm that? Fine, how about this?” He pushed himself back to standing, though only walked to the fallen door at which point he sat once again.
The two sat in silence for a short time until the ceratogi finally picked up the knife and stood up. When it offered it to him, the ceratogi was holding it by the back of the blade and offering him the hilt. Tammrit thanked him, taking the gaspeite blade and stowing it in its pocket. Suddenly he found the ceratogi’s hand on his right shoulder. “Lo”, it then moved its hand to it’s own chest. “Te”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
The ceratogi again placed its hand on his shoulder as it spoke. “You” it then moved its hand to its own chest. “Tekawestin”
The rjkari sighed, leaning back slightly, introductions finally. He placed his hand on his own chest as he spoke; “Tammrit Fortengus.” he then moved his hand to the smaller person’s shoulder. “Tekawestin.” The ceratogi however seemed to cringe at its own name.
“Kebara lo alanastra.” It shook it’s head, taking his hand off it’s chest. It seemed to be thinking for a while before placing it’s hand on the rjkari’s shoulder again with the other hand hovering in front of his mouth without touching him. “Tammrit Fortengus-”
“Tammrit” he interjected, if this was a name exchange, he didn’t want the ceratogi addressing him by full name all the time.
“Tammrit Fortengus” It repeated before moving the hovering hand infront of its own mouth while keeping one hand on his shoulder. “Tammrit.” He wasn’t exactly sure what the purpose of this was, but he suspected his best option would be to simply sit and watch. The ceratogi’s hand then moved to its chest while the other hand still covered its mouth. “Tekawestin” He nodded along, he already understood all this. The ceratogi’s ‘hover hand’ then moved in front of Tammrit’s mouth; “Lokawestin.” He wasn’t ready for a language lesson, but it sounds like he was going to get one anyway, it dropped both arms before continuing. “You, Tammrit” it finished, standing there with an almost expectant look on its face.
“You’re Lokawestin?” He asked cautiously. The ceratogi smiled and simply moved to sitting beside him on the fallen stone door.